The Tyrone School Board voted 7-0 with Becky Emenheiser abstaining due to a conflict of interest against allowing a field trip by the Tyrone Choral Department to New York City to see the Broadway play Aida May 21 and 22.
\nThe motion was brought to the board by school board member Brian Bressler and seconded by Pete Dutrow after a parliamentary procedure question.
\nIn the discussion period concerning the motion, the board showed its apprehension about a trip to New York while the terror threat condition is high.
\n\u201cThis trip was not supported by our administration,\u201d said board president Lee Stover. \u201cThe other 20 trips you approved were supported by the appropriate administration. We have a flag on this one. I think it is an appropriate concern because of the tensions, the threat of terrorism and other things. Groups of kids are a wonderful target for a terrorist to make a statement. I think that is where the flag is coming from.\u201d
\nTyrone Superintendent Dr. William Miller spoke to the board and said that no money has been paid by the choral department so there would be no money lost if a negative action was taken.
\n\u201cWith the terror alert and where we are, we don\u2019t want the responsibility for the potential of what could happen in a situation like this,\u201d said Miller. \u201cThey did raise the money for the trip, but nothing has been paid. If you decide not to approve the trip, it will not financially hurt anyone.\u201d
\nStover asked the board to openly discuss the trip because as he said, \u201cIt\u2019s only fair to the group that requested the trip.\u201d
\n\u201cI know myself that I will not put the kids in harm\u2019s way,\u201d said Bressler. \u201cI can\u2019t support the trip.\u201d
\n\u201cThere are too many negative things going on right now,\u201d said board member Cindy Whitby. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t feel comfortable with them going to New York.\u201d
\nEmenhiser, who abstained from the vote, said that this climate has been in place since 9\/11.
\n\u201cThere have been negative things for quite a while though,\u201d said Emenhiser. \u201cThe administration didn\u2019t approve of the long ski trip.\u201d
\nWhitby said, \u201cWe weren\u2019t on such a high alert.\u201d
\nEmenhiser replied, \u201cWe\u2019ve been back and forth on high alert since September 11. It\u2019s been high and its been up and down.\u201d
\nBressler added, \u201cVermont isn\u2019t an area that is probably a high target of attack. New York City is a high profile target and you are looking at going to the Statue of Liberty, which is one of the likeliest targets to be hit. An American symbol like that is one of the highest targets to hit in New York City.\u201d
\nEmenhiser spoke of better border control and more security because of the terror alert being high.
\n\u201cIt looked good a couple weeks ago,\u201d said Bressler. \u201cWith the war going on, you just don\u2019t know what is going to happen.\u201d
\nStover spoke again to the board.
\n\u201cThere have been many good ideas and you have to vote what is on your mind,\u201d said the board president. \u201cYou can either respond to this kind of pressure and change your activities or you carry on. You as a board has to make this decision.\u201d
\n\u201cIf in fact we get things settled, I don\u2019t know what the timeline is on if they can go or not go,\u201d said Dutrow.
\n\u201cI have no time frame when the war would be over,\u201d said Miller. \u201cTerrorism could continue for who knows how long. \u201d
\n\u201cI understand the decision,\u201d said Cathy Young, TAHS choral director. \u201cThe safety of the kids comes first. It was just bad timing on when the trip was scheduled. I know a lot of the kids are disappointed with the decision.\u201d
\nFollowing the meeting, The Daily Herald asked why the board can reject a student trip with funds raised by the students and send administrators to Washington D.C. to attend the Safe Schools Healthy Students conference. The reply was: they are adults.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Tyrone School Board voted 7-0 with Becky Emenheiser abstaining due to a conflict of interest against allowing a field trip by the Tyrone Choral Department to New York City to see the Broadway play Aida May 21 and 22. The motion was brought to the board by school board member Brian Bressler and seconded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46930\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}